* When Loretta Lynch still worked at Hogan & Hartson (now known as Hogan Lovells thanks to a merger), her colleagues described her as a warm person without “a political bone in her body.” That said, best of luck to her in D.C. [National Law Journal]

* The D.C. Circuit upheld the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive opt-out plan for religious employers, but since “[t]he court is wrong,” we can count on a at least a few organizations that’ll refuse to comply. Gee, thanks a lot, Obama. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Some call the latest Biglaw tie-up “law-firm Darwinism,” but hey, “[i]t’s not like [Bingham’s] a wounded gazelle and we are pouncing on them,” says a too coy Morgan Lewis lawyer. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* Fashion law may be a $985 billion global industry, but only five law school courses on the topic exist in the U.S. Why? “There’s no defensible reason except that fashion is perceived as a frivolous subject.” [AFP]

* This woman plans to appeal a $1 billion divorce settlement award because it’s not “fair and equitable.” In her defense, she did get a very small percentage of her ex-husband’s multibillion-dollar wealth. [People]

* Wage and hour laws have never been so sexy: Thanks to this court ruling, Rick’s Cabaret is going to have to make it rain on thousands of strippers to the tune of more than $10 million. [New York Times]

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* Judge John D. Bates wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committee leadership “on behalf of the Judiciary” explaining why it’s important to keep FISA an opaque Star Chamber. Chief Judge Kozinsky, um, disagrees with that “on behalf” part, and calls out Judge Bates in this letter for mouthing off where he has absolutely no authority. [Just Security]

* Two InfiLaw schools, Florida Coastal and our Twitter buddies at Charlotte, are offering refunds to students who perpetually fail the bar as well as a refund to students who don’t get clerkships or externships. That’s nice. A whole $10,000 for failing the bar twice and $2000 for not landing a position. Don’t bother comparing that too how much the students shelled out for their degrees because it’s too depressing. [JD Journal]

* Do you want to know how to survive Biglaw? [2Civility]

* Interesting advice on how to best take advantage of the more informal rules of mediation — let your clients build the narrative. [Katz Justice]

* Judge gives a speech and suggests a woman should become a phone sex operator. That’ll work out well for him. [Journal Gazette]

* Maybe we should be getting law degrees as undergrads? That way we might have minors that employers will care about. [Chronicle of Higher Education]

* Geez, lots of judges in trouble today — here’s an elected judge accused of lying about where she lived to get elected. She denies it, but her filings list three different addresses. Oops. [Times-Picayune]

* Most exciting of all is that we may never need to hear the depressing “copyright-free” Happy Birthday song ever again. [boingboing]

* With all the fire-breathing over the humanitarian crisis at the Mexican border, Texas Judge Clay Jenkins stands out for being reasonable. “I don’t feel like we have to solve the border crisis for a terrified child to be shown some compassion.” Why don’t we hear about more people like Judge Jenkins? This article suggests there’s a deeper problem with the media. [Dallas Observer]

* I’ve been beating the drum that the Obamacare cases aren’t bound for SCOTUS because the D.C. Circuit will reverse Halbig en banc. The contrary view is that the Supreme Court may not let the lack of a real circuit split stand in its way. [Constitutional Accountability Center]

* Outrage over the government’s school lunch health standards have Republicans fighting back at the state level. Remember, we need fatass kids because… freedom! [National Journal]

* Someone is having fun with their RFAs: Admit… that we are going to whip the dog piss out of you. We were specifically chided: “please don’t say ‘only in Arkansas,’” so we won’t. You should feel free to say exactly that though. [Hawg Law Blog]

* Not really surprising, but patent trolling is the worst it has ever been. I’ll sit here and wait for the New York Times to blame millennials. [io9]

* The most important Supreme Court decision you’ve never heard of! Well, except I have heard of it. In fact, there was a year-long college debate topic about it. But it’s still important. [Washington Post]

* What’s the appropriate sentence for having a dog off a leash? Confining the guy to a seven-county area? [LA Weekly]

* Things to do in Denver when you’re a lawyer: allegedly scam a few million off a client. [Denver Post]

* Meet the lawyer who came up with the quirky reading that got the D.C. Circuit to temporarily derail Obamacare. [Wall Street Journal]

* Meanwhile, this title says it all about Halbig: “Well, Conjecture, Tendentious Misreadings, and Cherry Picking Are Kinds of Evidence.” Pour a little out for Lionel Hutz. [Lawyers, Guns & Money]

* Ohio State fired its band director amid sexual harassment allegations. To fire a guy, Ohio State must have dotted every “i” in this investigation. [USA Today]

* Speaking of sexual harassment, the Navy’s Blue Angels are the subject of a sexual harassment suit. And somehow it involves a blue and gold penis seen from space. [Slate]

* The Chevron battle over Ecuador continues. Turns out the star witness Chevron paid upwards of $1 million to testify took 50 days of prep to finally get his ever-shifting story straight. [Huffington Post]

* There’s a new book out called Kate’s Escape from the Billable Hour (affiliate link). We haven’t read it, but apparently this tale of “a burnt-out, second-year attorney working in the dysfunctional world of Big Law” mentions ATL. So they definitely did their research. [Amazon]

* In Louisiana, a justice of the peace is given public money to hire all their staff and buy all their equipment and pay themselves whatever salary they want out of the remainder. One guy had a very clever idea about how to allocate that money and it set off a legal fight. Oh, and apparently the best job in Louisiana is to be a constable. So now you know. [Times-Picayune]

* Do you know the 12 Rules of Client Service? Are you at least ready to fight over them? [What About Clients?]

* Newark police can’t even come up with constitutional excuses for 75 percent of what they do. [Slate]

* Lululemon figured that patent trolls were onto something and patented its clothing designs and aggressively pursues anyone who dares design a tank top with a built-in bra. Who would ever have thought of such an original idea? [Jezebel]

* The University of California is increasing non-resident enrollment for budget reasons. Law schools presumably follow suit. [TaxProf Blog]

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* The D.C. Circuit struck down a key component of Obamacare while a few miles away, the Fourth Circuit disagreed. This sets up an intriguing circuit split that will be resolved as soon as the D.C. Circuit takes it up en banc. Until then though, let the mainstream media talking heads freak out about what this all means. [NBC News]

* Professor Thane Rosenbaum writes in the Wall Street Journal (natch!) defending the deaths of civilian Palestinians using the same logic that Osama bin Laden used to justify 9/11. He probably should have done a little more research. [Slate]

* Amelia Boone, a Skadden Chicago bankruptcy associate, is a world champion Tough Mudder and Spartan Race runner. Because who says cruelly abusing yourself has to be limited to the work week? [Outside]

* Elie thinks we should all get drunk and go for a bike ride! [ATL Redline]

* From purveyor of justice to purveyor of donuts. [USA Today]

* Congratulations to Professor Mariano-Florentino Cuellar of Stanford Law on his nomination to the California Supreme Court. If confirmed, maybe Stanford can start advertising about all the state judges they’ve produced. [San Jose Mercury News]

* “The Likelihood A Robot Will Steal Your Job, In One Picture.” Good news for lawyers, not-so-good news for paralegals. [Kotaku]

* An interesting perspective from Professor Faisal Kutty: “Why Gay Marriage May Not Be Contrary To Islam.” [Huffington Post]

* And from Willkie partner Francis J. Menton: “Argentina Is Joined In The Supreme Court By The Coalition Of Weasels.” (I’m guessing Willkie doesn’t represent many foreign sovereigns in fights against their creditors; that seems to be Cleary Gottlieb’s niche.) [Manhattan Contrarian via Instapundit]

* A CLE event that offers a lot of bang for the buck. [National Firearms Law Seminar]

* If you’ll be in Philadelphia tomorrow night, watch a bunch of Penn Law students beat up some punks from Wharton — for a good cause! [Wharton vs. Law: Fight Night; promotional video after the jump]

* The Biglaw firm that Chris Christie hired to investigate Chris Christie and the Bridgegate scandal has concluded that Chris Christie did nothing wrong. Phew, Chris Christie couldn’t haven seen that one coming. [BuzzFeed]

* If you were an attorney on the D.C. Circuit case where counsel received an unexpected benchslap for their use of excessive acronyms, would you have said OMG WTF, or LOL NBD? Choose wisely, unless you DGAF. [Legal Writing Pro]

* BTW, the D.C. Circuit doesn’t so much forbid the use of uncommon acronyms so much as it requires that a glossary be used to define them. Too bad iPads have killed glossaries. [Maryland Appellate Blog]

* An American failed chef in Paris: One of Lat’s friends from back in the day when he was at Wachtell took a very circuitous route to becoming the first American partner at a top French firm. [The Deal Pipeline]

* If you care at all about how well women and minority law students are represented on law reviews, then you’ll want to come to this important event. I’ll be there, and hope to see you there, too! [Ms. JD]

* It’s getting hot in herre, but please keep on your clothes. Students from Penn Law REALLY want you to know about this weekend’s boxing event. Nelly will be at the after party. [Wharton vs. Law: Fight Night]

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